Photo by:
The Brooklyn-based indie rock band The Antlers performed at the Ogden last weekend. With singer and guitarist Peter Silberman, Michael Lerner on drums and Darby Cicci on the keyboard, the band played songs from its debut album Hospice to an adoring audience.
As Silberman sang, he stood on his tiptoes, like his lungs were reaching for the ceiling.
Those closest to the stage mouthed the lyrics and pumped their fists in the air in time with the thump of the bass drum. Some nodded their heads, some swayed back and forth. One woman held a beer in her left hand and wiped away a tear with her right.
The Clarion conducted a phone interview with Silberman three days prior to the show.
Where did the name The Antlers come from?
To the best of my recollection it’s named after a Microphones song called “Antlers.” I don’t know if that was intentional or if I was just listening to The Microphones a lot at that point and liked the idea of antlers more than anything.
You released Hospice last March with Frenchkiss Records. What made you choose “Hospice” as the title of the album?
Hospice is the one-word explanation of the story – more than the story, the analogy.
It’s a record about a relationship but it’s told in the context of hospice care, the relationship between a patient and a hospice worker.
Where did the idea for telling that story come from?
The record is telling the story of a relationship that really could be anybody’s relationship. [The hospice concept] gives it a lot of guilt and selfishness and selflessness. The hospice seemed like an appropriate way to describe that, an appropriate frame to tell that story.
Do you ever listen to Hospice on your own?
It’s been awhile. We change the songs so much when we play them live, it’s almost confusing to listen to the record after that, especially when we’re in tour mode, which is the position we’re in right now.
We’re very much focusing on playing and performing these songs.
When you do listen to the album, which song do you find yourself going back to most?
It really changes every time actually. I think there’s songs that I’ve gotten really used to hearing. Every once in awhile when I listened to Hospice, I would hear a song differently than I remembered it. I would pay closer attention to it, but that would change with every listen.
You started recording music on your own until Michael and Darby joined. How has your creative process changed with Michael and Darby involved in the music?
It really changes every day. Hospice was me writing it and trying to explain to them how I wanted them to be involved with it. That was the only way this record could have been made, especially because it was when we were starting out as being a band and not my solo thing anymore. At this point it’s completely changed. [The band] is not my thing anymore.
It’s all three of us, as far as new material we’re working on and just the way we live every day is very democratic and split three ways. I’m really happy about that. As time goes on, I’m happier and happier to be in this band.
How does the New York culture contribute to your creative process?
I think New York has its own personality, almost as if it’s a person. It almost feels natural to frame any story in New York.
I think just like in any place you could ever live, you associate different areas with different memories. That’s what I think is interesting about New York, that interconnectedness of every location.
Can fans expect any new material to be released anytime soon?
It’s tough to say. We’re working on a lot of new material right now; we’re working on it all at once. But we don’t know what we’re going to do with it yet. We haven’t decided yet.
It depends on how it turns out when it’s finished. It’s anybody’s guess. I think I’ll definitely start to play stuff live and get used to it that way. But as far as releasing recordings, I couldn’t say just yet.
